Best autofocus settings for video.

Thanks very much for your very detailed reply.

I actually got pretty good results using the Pany 100-400 when doing the video. I am now using the Olympus 150-400. It is fabulous when using manual focus but I obviously have a way to go to get the best results with auto focus and the new lens.

Carol--I always go to movie on the mode dial for video and use the red button to start/stop. After you switch to movie, go to menu, then movie and you will see there that you can switch to any PASM mode you want. You can also turn on or off auto iso. I usually use a slow shutter speed for video than I would for stills, especially for birds (although I don't do much bird video other than slow movers anyway). I usually use shutter priority with shutter set to 1/125 or so at 30 or 60 fps video speed with the long lens and then adjust the iso until I get the aperture in a range where I want it. If I want to switch back to stills, I move the mode dial back to A, for example and use the shutter button. The still shot exposure settings will be as you left them, pretty sure, and, when you switch back to video, the video settings will still be there.

I don't do a lot of switching between video and stills so maybe someone that does that a lot will post their settings. If I go out to shoot video, I usually have an ND filter on the lens if the light is bright and harsh and I use an external Shinobi monitor with the camera in full manual and adjust the ND (very gently!) to fine tune the exposure using the tools in the external monitor to see what is going on with focus and exposure while recording. But you can certainly shoot video just fine without an external monitor and without using an ND and switch back and forth, the shutter speed may be a little high when shooting video, that's all.

Perhaps spend some time in the movie page of the menu. Also, be careful when recording any audio using the tiny camera mics. Lots of breath noise, hat rubs, nose rubs, dial clicks will be picked up, especially hand holding the camera/lens. You can turn off audio or delete the audio track in an editor later. The on camera mics are very sensitive to wind and operator noise! I always plug in a Rode Video Micro with the provided dead cat on the hot shoe or on an old flash bracket to get even a scratch audio track without using the camera mics, and then try to place it where I don't hit it with a hat bill if using the EVF.

Hi Joe,

thanks for another awesome reply you have been very kind with all your postings. I am actually copying all your notes so that I can read them offline as I want. I might even print them out for easier reference.

This is my experience too, Joe. Nice view!!! Were you using a tripod? Nice smooth video.

JRobins said:

This is my experience too, Joe. Nice view!!! Were you using a tripod? Nice smooth video.

Click to expand...

Yes, on a tripod, through door glass. Cold outside, warm inside. And it was just a demo.

You are most welcome, glad I could help. This may be the first of my work this year that is good enough to print.

Joe Lynch said:

You are most welcome, glad I could help. This may be the first of my work this year that is good enough to print.

Click to expand...

--
Carol

One more still photo gallery example for you since I'm on a roll here. I shot these this afternoon at a small residential pond (drainage ditch?) near my house. The bird is Elliot, my personal long lens training subject, whom I've been observing for two years. I took about 200 shots, and about 180 were in focus using CAF+Tr with bird eye detect. All shot at 400 ISO, wide open, using a video tripod and without the 1.4x teleconvertor, then processed in DXO PL5 using Prime noise reduction. I did switch to the 1.2x internal when Elliot moved away from me. This was good practice. I may shoot some video of Elliot tomorrow, again, just for practice. Unless Edgar is there, my personal practice subject Blue Heron. Elliot is prettier.

Elliot White Egret Pond Liberty Hill 1-5-22

Thanks for getting me to go practice a little with the big lens and 1X. This is fun.

Joe

Joe Lynch said:

One more still photo gallery example for you since I'm on a roll here. I shot these this afternoon at a small residential pond (drainage ditch?) near my house. The bird is Elliot, my personal long lens training subject, whom I've been observing for two years. I took about 200 shots, and about 180 were in focus using CAF+Tr with bird eye detect. All shot at 400 ISO, wide open, using a video tripod and without the 1.4x teleconvertor, then processed in DXO PL5 using Prime noise reduction. I did switch to the 1.2x internal when Elliot moved away from me. This was good practice. I may shoot some video of Elliot tomorrow, again, just for practice. Unless Edgar is there, my personal practice subject Blue Heron. Elliot is prettier.

Elliot White Egret Pond Liberty Hill 1-5-22

Thanks for getting me to go practice a little with the big lens and 1X. This is fun.

Joe

Click to expand...

Glad to be of service Joe. You are lucky to have such obliging models that you can practice on. I find the more I shoot the better I get. It is sometimes getting the motivation to do so. I don’t seem to be as lucky with bird AI. When you say bird eye detect is that just using bird AI or do you also have eye detect in a separate setting?
--
Carol

Hi Carol,

Sorry, a bit late to the party - but I've shot a lot of video with the E-M1X. I can suggest three things:

1. AF video settings (it's found in the video settings - not the stills settings) - Set AF sensitivity to 'high/+1' and set AF speed to 'slow/-1. I find anything faster than -1 for AF speed to be rather jarring and unsightly for video, basically a smoother refocus.

2. You need to be shooting at apertures larger than f/8 - Anything smaller and the phase system can't distinguish depth well enough (because there's a general lack of depth at smaller apertures anyhow). The longer the focal length, the more you can lean toward f/8, the wider the focal length, the more open you need to be (but obviously you may need NDs to allow you to get an ideal video shutter speed i.e. the 180° video rule)

Unless you've changed it to your own personal settings, the L-FN button on your lens by default is an AF freeze when in video mode - i.e. you've locked focus on something, and you want to ensure that the system doesn't refocus on anything else - if you keep your finger down on the button, it will continue to lock the focus in place until you release - super useful if a subject starts going behind trees or something like that.

Good luck!

Light Bender said:

Hi Carol,

Sorry, a bit late to the party - but I've shot a lot of video with the E-M1X. I can suggest three things:

1. AF video settings (it's found in the video settings - not the stills settings) - Set AF sensitivity to 'high/+1' and set AF speed to 'slow/-1. I find anything faster than -1 for AF speed to be rather jarring and unsightly for video, basically a smoother refocus.

2. You need to be shooting at apertures larger than f/8 - Anything smaller and the phase system can't distinguish depth well enough (because there's a general lack of depth at smaller apertures anyhow). The longer the focal length, the more you can lean toward f/8, the wider the focal length, the more open you need to be (but obviously you may need NDs to allow you to get an ideal video shutter speed i.e. the 180° video rule)

Unless you've changed it to your own personal settings, the L-FN button on your lens by default is an AF freeze when in video mode - i.e. you've locked focus on something, and you want to ensure that the system doesn't refocus on anything else - if you keep your finger down on the button, it will continue to lock the focus in place until you release - super useful if a subject starts going behind trees or something like that.

Good luck!

Click to expand...

Thanks so very much (do I call you Light or Mr or Ms Bender? )

I am saving all these tips in one place so I can experiment to see which one works best for me. I have never really dived into the movie settings. I am more a stills photographer but like to add the occasional video. Especially if travelling and I want to put an AV together afterwards.

I only have a 10 stop ND which I would assume is way too strong. Plus it won’t fit the huge filter size of the 150-400. At this stage I don’t plan on getting one just for video and will play with a mix of shutter and aperture and iso plus compensation to get the results I want.

I am getting various suggestions re CAF speed. Some suggest +1 and some -1. So I will definitely play with those to see which works best for my type of shooting. Minus is smoother but plus responds much quicker.


This has been a wonderful exercise as I am now understanding the benefits of all the settings. It was something I had sort of looked at before but ended up leaving it on default as I didn’t want to mess things up without really understanding what they did.

Carol Darby said:

Light Bender said:

Hi Carol,

Sorry, a bit late to the party - but I've shot a lot of video with the E-M1X. I can suggest three things:

1. AF video settings (it's found in the video settings - not the stills settings) - Set AF sensitivity to 'high/+1' and set AF speed to 'slow/-1. I find anything faster than -1 for AF speed to be rather jarring and unsightly for video, basically a smoother refocus.

2. You need to be shooting at apertures larger than f/8 - Anything smaller and the phase system can't distinguish depth well enough (because there's a general lack of depth at smaller apertures anyhow). The longer the focal length, the more you can lean toward f/8, the wider the focal length, the more open you need to be (but obviously you may need NDs to allow you to get an ideal video shutter speed i.e. the 180° video rule)

Unless you've changed it to your own personal settings, the L-FN button on your lens by default is an AF freeze when in video mode - i.e. you've locked focus on something, and you want to ensure that the system doesn't refocus on anything else - if you keep your finger down on the button, it will continue to lock the focus in place until you release - super useful if a subject starts going behind trees or something like that.

Good luck!

Click to expand...

Thanks so very much (do I call you Light or Mr or Ms Bender? )

I am saving all these tips in one place so I can experiment to see which one works best for me. I have never really dived into the movie settings. I am more a stills photographer but like to add the occasional video. Especially if travelling and I want to put an AV together afterwards.

I only have a 10 stop ND which I would assume is way too strong. Plus it won’t fit the huge filter size of the 150-400. At this stage I don’t plan on getting one just for video and will play with a mix of shutter and aperture and iso plus compensation to get the results I want.

I am getting various suggestions re CAF speed. Some suggest +1 and some -1. So I will definitely play with those to see which works best for my type of shooting. Minus is smoother but plus responds much quicker.

This has been a wonderful exercise as I am now understanding the benefits of all the settings. It was something I had sort of looked at before but ended up leaving it on default as I didn’t want to mess things up without really understanding what they did.

Click to expand...

you dont need an nd filter to shoot video. set the camera to "P" and auto iso and adjust exposure comp from a dial. the em12 was very good at video af ,very solid and nice and smooth.

Ds

Joe Lynch said:

I'm uploading another video for you, this time using the same settings as the other one, except I turned on CAF+Tr and bird eye autofocus. I needed some practice. Again, through some glass.

CAF+Tr practice on deck 150-400 1X

There isn't any audio, but it was kind of fun watching the camera try to find an obscured bird. BIF I don't do much of, unless they are very large, slow, and close.

Joe

Click to expand...

Hi Joe,

You mention bird eye focus. Are you meaning having the face setting on? I tried to see if I could get Bird AI with movie but it doesn’t seem to be offered with Movie mode as it is greyed out. It doesn’t make a difference whether I use CF or CF with tracking.

I had the opportunity to shoot Ospreys at the beach this morning so took the opportunity to try lots of different video settings. I have speed set to + 1. I tried the different settings for sensitivity and got way better results with -1. When I had it on +1 it would struggle to gain and hold focus. The Ospreys were staying in one spot and it was bright sunlight.

But since getting home I played with plus and minus sensitivity. Plus was definitely way quicker when moving from near to far objects. Especially when I have the camera on full zoom. The camera in general struggles way less when I am at the wider zoom settings.

This has been a fabulous exercise as I have learnt so much about the video settings and what each one does. So now I am confident to adapt as needed in the field. I had always left it on default but now I can happily adjust.

So big thanks to you and the others who have responded to my request.

--
Carol

Carol Darby said:

You mention bird eye focus. Are you meaning having the face setting on? I tried to see if I could get Bird AI with movie but it doesn’t seem to be offered with Movie mode as it is greyed out. It doesn’t make a difference whether I use CF or CF with tracking.

Click to expand...

You are correct--bird AI not offered in movie mode, but I had CAF+Tr and eye on and the camera still tried to find a bird head, at least. You might experiment with it. I just tried going back and forth between movie and Aperture priority stills mode, and the available options do change between modes. I'm thinking maybe you aren't the only one that needs to go practice some! I just haven't used Tr mode often enough lately to remember all the limitations.

So it looks like if one has the bird AI and eye detect on for stills, and one switches to movie mode, the camera will still try to find a head and eye even if the subject isn't a human. My bet is that it worked, kind of, in my example because of all the straight line twigs in the background. I'm usually looking at shore birds against water or grass background so that may make it easy enough for the camera to find something with some curvature to guess it is a head.

Joe

Joe Lynch said:

Joe Lynch said:

You mention bird eye focus. Are you meaning having the face setting on? I tried to see if I could get Bird AI with movie but it doesn’t seem to be offered with Movie mode as it is greyed out. It doesn’t make a difference whether I use CF or CF with tracking.

Click to expand...

You are correct--bird AI not offered in movie mode, but I had CAF+Tr and eye on and the camera still tried to find a bird head, at least. You might experiment with it. I just tried going back and forth between movie and Aperture priority stills mode, and the available options do change between modes. I'm thinking maybe you aren't the only one that needs to go practice some! I just haven't used Tr mode often enough lately to remember all the limitations.

So it looks like if one has the bird AI and eye detect on for stills, and one switches to movie mode, the camera will still try to find a head and eye even if the subject isn't a human. My bet is that it worked, kind of, in my example because of all the straight line twigs in the background. I'm usually looking at shore birds against water or grass background so that may make it easy enough for the camera to find something with some curvature to guess it is a head.

Joe

Click to expand...

Thanks again Joe,

I have set up face and eye in the movie mode. I have Bird AI set up in a couple of my custom modes. I will continue to experiment with the sensitivity controls and that will be the first setting I will play with if I find the camera and lens struggling to focus.

Soon, I will be asking you questions instead of the other way around!

Carol Darby said:

Thanks very much for your very detailed reply.

I actually got pretty good results using the Pany 100-400 when doing the video. I am now using the Olympus 150-400. It is fabulous when using manual focus but I obviously have a way to go to get the best results with auto focus and the new lens.

Click to expand...

That is one very expensive lens and only works as it should with an Olympus Synch-IS back.

The Olympus 100-400 will not perform any kind of dual stabilisation on a Lumix back whereas the Pan PL100-400 will at least use the Olympus "Dual Stabilisation" (not Synch-IS) on an Olympus back, as will the Olympus 100-400 on E-M5ii, and later. Which means if you have both breeds of back - it's the PL100-400.

I find the PL100-400 cumbersome on the small E-M5ii but it handles the lighter Lumix 45-200 very well, rocking both stabilisers. The stabilisation is not comparable to the Dual2 on the G9. It really is something else. You should experience that super-stabilisation with the Pro 150-400.

Movie AF focusing is often deliberately slower to provide smooth transitions. It may be adjustable. Movie and still AF may not operate the same way. It depends what you want. There are tricks to play with movie that are not applicable to stills.

jefrs said:

Carol Darby said:

Thanks very much for your very detailed reply.

I actually got pretty good results using the Pany 100-400 when doing the video. I am now using the Olympus 150-400. It is fabulous when using manual focus but I obviously have a way to go to get the best results with auto focus and the new lens.

Click to expand...

That is one very expensive lens and only works as it should with an Olympus Synch-IS back.

The Olympus 100-400 will not perform any kind of dual stabilisation on a Lumix back whereas the Pan PL100-400 will at least use the Olympus "Dual Stabilisation" (not Synch-IS) on an Olympus back, as will the Olympus 100-400 on E-M5ii, and later. Which means if you have both breeds of back - it's the PL100-400.

I find the PL100-400 cumbersome on the small E-M5ii but it handles the lighter Lumix 45-200 very well, rocking both stabilisers. The stabilisation is not comparable to the Dual2 on the G9. It really is something else. You should experience that super-stabilisation with the Pro 150-400.

Movie AF focusing is often deliberately slower to provide smooth transitions. It may be adjustable. Movie and still AF may not operate the same way. It depends what you want. There are tricks to play with movie that are not applicable to stills.

Click to expand...

Thanks very much for your detailed reply. I am a bit confused when you refer to dual stabilization with an Olympus back. I assume by back you are meaning an Olympus camera.

I have been playing with sensitivity adjustments and am getting better results. It may take a bit longer to focus but keeps focus better.